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Sony chief in Europe aims to restore brand's glitter

BORDEAUX — On the heels of the biggest management shakeup in Sony history, the president of Sony Europe vowed Wednesday that the company would shore up its reputation as a consumer technology and electronics trendsetter, backed by a 1 billion European marketing drive that began this week.

Chris Deering, a 57-year-old American based in Berlin and London, said he expected Sony to be a more nimble entertainment company with fewer products that were more intensively promoted when Howard Stringer, a Briton, took over as Sony's chairman and chief executive in June.

"The chance to be better heard by Sir Howard far enough in advance during the formative stages of strategy is probably going to be a good thing for Europe," Deering said during an interview in Bordeaux, where Sony is holding its annual European product introduction. "It's reasonable to assume that he will impose more discipline on focus, on the products that have real potential for commercialization."

In Europe, as in many other places, Sony holds the leading market share of any consumer electronics company. The region accounts for about 30 percent of annual revenue, a proportion that is growing, Deering said.

But missteps under the current Japanese chief executive, Nobuyuki Idei, in reacting to changing consumer tastes and habits around the world have taken the luster off the brand. While Sony is still making money, the cool, hip image in digital audio, for example, is held by Apple Computer and its iPods.

In addition, the transformation of content to digital formats - from photos to music to movies to games - has led to a slew of media devices, giving the once-untouchable Sony hundreds of potential rivals that can compete at low cost.

The 1 billion, or $1.29 billion, three-year campaign, using the motto "like no other," is an effort to restore the shine in Europe.

"In terms of marketing, we have always been led by engineers," said Nicolas Babin, Sony Europe director of corporate communications. "Now it's time to get aggressive."

Under Stringer, who is known as a diplomat and team builder as the chief of Sony's media businesses, Europe's place in Sony's universe should climb as well, Deering said.

Yet despite Europe's rising profile, Sony still ranks the region as a second-class citizen in many ways.

Three weeks after the introduction of the company's PlayStation Portable game device in the United States and several months after the Japanese debut, an introduction in Europe is still weeks away. Deering could not specify when the highly anticipated gadget would go on sale here except to say that Sony would make an announcement in "the next few weeks."

"You can't do a good job of launching in Europe without a critical mass," he said. "We have plenty of games, but we don't have the devices because they're all being used to feed the re-orders in Japan and the U.S."

In Europe, Sony holds three-quarters of the game console market, he said, ahead of Nintendo and Microsoft.

In addition, Sony Europe this week made its Qualia line of high-end products available to consumers here, two years after its introduction in Japan.

And Sony's business has been disappointingly "flat to trending down" in Germany, Europe's one-time economic engine, for years, Deering said, calling the country's weakness a "perfect storm of the afflictions of older Europe."

"I'm not sure we're at the tipping point" toward growth in Germany, "but we can see it on the horizon."

The company will invest more marketing money this year than ever before in Germany, he said. "It's been one of our problem markets for a long time."

Lastly, Europe lags behind the rest of the world in the adoption of high-definition video, television and movie technology on which Sony is betting a huge stake, from its ownership of some underlying patents to its professional and consumer movie cameras to its integration with its Vaio personal computers and Blu-ray optical storage discs.

Deering said the company would not miss the boat on profiting from this technology. "How can we miss the boat when we're the ones out front with the megaphone leading on everyone else?" he asked rhetorically.

Still, Sony also once had an undisputed lead in portable digital audio with its Walkman products before Apple stole a march on it with its iPod over the past three years.

"There is not only a fascination and an opportunity but a fundamental need to integrate Sony businesses," such as its newly acquired MGM movie library and the new Sony BMG music recording label, with its technology arms such as Vaio computers and the forthcoming Blu-ray Disc optical, he said.